


Socks, and Other Troublesome Things

by bentleys



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-06
Updated: 2009-12-06
Packaged: 2017-11-05 22:49:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/411887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bentleys/pseuds/bentleys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An angel wakes up and can only find one sock. Obviously, this leads to much distress, and a certain demon kept waiting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Socks, and Other Troublesome Things

It had been quite a while since the Averting the Apocalypse, putting it somewhat near to the time during which a jolly fat man is supposed to go around breaking into peoples’ houses with a large sack.

\--

Soft, rainy, sunlight shyly peeks through the window.

Inside, an angel is sleeping.

Or at least, one _was._

“Wstfgl?” Aziraphale says blearily, with the air of someone who has had a very strange dream and is not quite sure whether or not it actually happened.

He had a late night, and therefore feels he needs a few more hours in bed in order to be fully functional.

Unfortunately, he’s promised a certain demon that he’ll meet him at noon, and said demon is quite un-fond of lateness; unless, of course, it’s on his part.

Aziraphale pulls back the covers with an air of grumpiness. He climbs out of bed, pulls open his sock drawer, and immediately looks considerably more cheerful.

One of the best things about the holidays, he always says, is that it gives you the once-a-year opportunity to wear long toe socks with large happy snowmen on them.

During one memorable occasion in which Aziraphale had voiced this out loud, Crowley had snottily pointed out that this sort of “expressing oneself” was not at all accepted of adult men.

Aziraphale had decided to blatantly ignore this fact.

So, the angel is humming quite happily as he extracts a particularly fluffy pair of socks with singing angels on them. Aziraphale finds them entertaining.

Suddenly, he lets out a gasp of horror, a sound akin to the sound someone would make having discovered a large bomb with a timer of two seconds left in their linen cupboard.

There’s no bomb. But there is something nearly as drastic.

_It’s not a pair._

_There’s only one sock!_

Aziraphale stares in horror at the atrocity in his hand, then dives at the drawer and starts frantically pawing through it.

\--

A very small and rather sticky boy sits in the center of a park, playing in the mud with a stick.

Crowley was glaring very darkly at this small child. He dislikes small children in general, but those who and sticky and making disgusting squelching noises in the mud are particularly bothersome.

Crowley’s temper is also not much improved by the fact that he has been forced to wait in the rain.

He doesn’t much like rain. It soaks through all of his considerable layers, and makes him altogether too cold.

Plus, it makes it rather difficult to see, when one happens to be wearing dark sunglasses.

\--

Nearly an hour has passed in the house of one very disgruntled angel. He gave up the frantic pawing some time ago, and out of exasperation, ending up simply turning the entire drawer upside down on his carpet.

The result of which he is now sitting in an enormous pile of socks (and some cardigans that ended up there by mistake).

Aziraphale lets out a moan of despair. This has happened before, of course, _but not with the holiday socks._ The holiday socks are special!

But the other half of the angel pair is nowhere to be found. In fact, the only holiday pair left intact is one proclaiming: “Naughty” in a curly cursive script; which Crowley got for him as a gag joke a few years ago.

Aziraphale almost considers wearing them, but decides against it on religious grounds.

With a dejected sigh, he pulls on the single angel sock, chooses a festive one with some dancing snowmen on it, and pulls that one on as well.

Shrugging his shoulders hopelessly, he heads out the door to meet Crowley.

\--

Crowley is leaning his head on his arm, pondering what evils to induce on the child in front of him. It is currently screaming hysterically for reasons only known to itself.

He is jerked out this rather dark chain of thought by the sight of a figure wearing an extremely out-of-style coat and a large, brightly coloured scarf.

“Aziraphale,” he murmurs triumphantly. _“Finally.”_

He pulls himself off the bench, carefully sidesteps the puddle containing the child, and jogs over to the angel.

“Hullo,” says Aziraphale sullenly.

“God, angel,” Crowley says, rubbing his hands together in a fruitless attempt to being some life back into them, “What took you so long?”

Aziraphale shrugs.

“Well, c’mon. It’s way past noon.”

The demon grabs the angel by the arm and pulls him into a small restaurant on the side of the road.

The two sit and down and order something to eat, as warmth slowly begins to return to their bodies.

Crowley immediately launches into a long and complicated story of an annoying man in an overcoat that was stalking him the other day, so it takes him a while to notice that Aziraphale is not his usual perceptive self, having not yet interrupted Crowley.

“Aziraphale?” He asks, leaning forward. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” says Aziraphale, rather evasively.

“Angel,” says Crowley, voice stern, “You haven’t corrected my grammar _once._ What’s up?”

Aziraphale sighs. “The most horrible thing happened this morning…”

“What?” prompted Crowley, slightly worried.

“I could only find one sock,” the angel said miserably.

Crowley blinks. “Huh?”

“And it was my holiday socks, too,” Aziraphale continues wistfully. “You know the feeling, you can only find half of the pair, so then you have to wear half of another pair, and then it just messes things up even more?”

An evil smile slides up Crowley face. “Of course I know the feeling. I invented it, in fact.”

Now it’s Aziraphale’s turn to say loudly: “What?!”

“Yes,” says the demon proudly. “That was one of my ideas, you know. I must say, it never went that well down there, so I’m glad that it’s giving _someone_ trouble.”

Aziraphale’s mouth falls open into a circle of horror. “You’re a _devil!”_

“I know,” Crowley says cheerily.

The angel narrows his eyes at him. “There is something I would like to say, but I won’t, because it’s not very nice, and I don’t think my fellow angels would approve.”

Crowley lets out a bark of laughter. “You’re a right bastard, Aziraphale, you know that?”

The angel simply glares. “I could still say it, you know.”

Crowley snorts. “Fine, angel! You win.”

“Good,” Aziraphale says, stabbing his meal with a little more force than necessary.

“I’ll be wanting that sock back, you hear me? It was one of my favorites.” He says rather threateningly.

And Crowley laughs and laughs, and their conversation carries on through the night; just another day in the world of a perfectly average pair of supernatural entities.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as part of the 2009 Good Omens Holiday exchange, for [winged_sandals](http://www.winged-sandals.livejournal.com/).


End file.
